The World According To Chris Brewer

I’m not kidding.

The Lakeland, FL Ledger has the info here:

Todd Bentley, the evangelist who has led the Florida Outpouring revival here in Lakeland since April 2, has filed for separation from his wife and might not return to the revival, according to his former local spokesperson, Lynne Breidenbach. She said Bentley made the announcement to his staff this afternoon. Bentley and his wife, Shonnah, have two daughters and a son and are Canadian citizens. Under Canadian law, separation is a first step in divorce proceedings and takes nine months. Bentley and his wife have been in marriage counseling for several months, Breidenbach said. She called the situation “very sad” but insisted it “doesn’t invalidate what Todd did” at the revival.

So I must be missing something. Tell me where a guy going through marriage counseling for his own problems with his marriage is able to minister and continue holding a crazy circus during one of the most trying times of his life?

Ladies and gentlemen, Todd Bentley is toast. I’m not rejoicing but I am glad to see the fakery and showmanship of his revival come to an end.

For now.

From now until Sunday, the Church of God of Prophecy is broadcasting their 95th General Assembly online and the quality is excellent. Kudos to the tech team there for providing a television-quality cast with great audio and excellent video. Only thing I’m not a fan of is their lower thirds…too rainbowish.

The Assembly is live from the Sommet Center in Nashville, TN and can be viewed at this link.

Enjoy the webcast and keep the COGOP in prayer as they conduct business at this Assembly.

Hey everyone, I am in need of prayer whenever you guys get a chance.

For the past two weeks I have felt run down in my body and tired at every single moment of every day. Everywhere I go, I feel like I could just curl up and sleep. Couple that with a persistent cough and sinus headache today and I’m just not feeling great right now.

I could use a good dose of the Holy Spirit about now.

Thanks for praying, guys.

Today was just the remedy for what ails me. I spent pretty much the whole day with two different groups of friends and it was great.

First off, and foremost, I attended church at JRA this morning, and it was good — Dr. Robert Spence, President of Evangel University, preached and brought forth a good message. Choir was also great, even though we were missing a few folks.

After that, my friends Ryan and Cory joined me for some disc golf at Oak Grove Park. It’s an okay course, not as good as the one in Nixa but it holds a couple challenges. One of the challenges was a pungent aroma of marijuana coming from a group of three that laughed as they let everyone play through on the 5th hole.

This evening, I was privileged to get together with a bunch of friends from work at a dinner party thrown by one of our graphic designers. THAT was fun, the lasagna was great and I am STILL full at 2 AM. Plus it was great to get to know everyone in a non-work setting.

And finally, mini golf was the cherry on top the cake. There was a bit bigger group of us from church and it was all good. Then I hit the batting cages and worked my way up to the 80 MPH pitches. Holy cow, I thought I was going to die.

Bedtime, and I’m waking up in 13 hours. Please don’t call my cell until noon…gracias.

Tonight was Victory Leaders Band night for The Church of God, a church organization that broke off from the Church of God of Prophecy somewhere around 1993 after some doctrinal/political disputes arose. The circumstances were petty for both sides so I’m not going to get into that.

What I am going to get into is the fact that this organization is meeting in their General Assembly at the Conn Center Auditorium at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee — the place seats 1800 — and they’ve been streaming their services for all the world to see. As such, the videos have been preserved (for the time being, at least).

I mentioned Victory Leaders Band (VLB’s) earlier. Basically it’s the old COGOP and current TCOG term for youth ministries. That’s it. Tonight is youth focus night, and a man named Rob Hawkins — no, not the main character in Cloverfield — is preaching fire and brimstone, literally.

In a video I am about to link you to, Hawkins lays out against various themes that all youth should avoid.

Rock music? Eh, I prefer electro anyway.
Video games? I rebuke you, Halo. Cortana, you sexy woman, get thee hence.
Video rental stores? I got Netflix instead.

I’m just surprised the guy didn’t rail against sports on Sunday.

The carnage is interwoven throughout the whole video, but the sermon I’m targeting is around the midway point. Scroll to the two-hour mark and Hawkins begins his sermon.

If you believe the COGOP hasn’t come very far as an organization since 1993 or so, watch the above video and get back to me, please.

I have not seen such a grievous display from a pulpit since I last watched whatever televangelist came on TV while I was surfing the channels late at night.

Good Lord, I think I’m going to be scared wherever I drive from here on out.

Today I found an exacto knife blade in my left rear tire, nestled perfectly between the treads. Cool, I thought, since I changed my right rear tire two weeks ago after a similar incident, this should be a breeze, right?

Well, let’s take into consideration three things here: I was in Ash Grove on my way home from a shoot, it was raining, and my tire didn’t want to come off after I wrenched off the lug nuts. I had to kick the thing twelve bloody times before it came off.

I put on my spare, drove to Springfield, and the good folks at the Firestone center on Sunshine and Kansas hooked me up by patching up the tire. They said the knife blade gashed it in not one, but two places.

While stewing over my second bad break in as many weeks, I was so thankful that my entire tire (like that?) didn’t need replacing — and that saved me a hundred bucks. I’m so happy about that.

When I came home, I was soaked to the bone, I had to throw away a shirt but I made it okay.

Changing gears now, and I’m not advertising one bit, but you have to watch the Olympics on nbcolympics.com. Seriously, ditch your TV and watch some cool stuff. There are no announcers as it is simply the AV feed coming in from the nerve center in Beijing, but what you don’t get with the commentary, it more than makes up for in the choices of what you can watch.

I’m choosing to watch some of the lesser-televised events in the Games this year — right now it’s badminton, and this is no joke. My brother and I used to play badminton in our yard back in Oregon all the time and it pales in comparison to this.

I can’t wait for table tennis.

Oh and by the way, congratulations to two native Oregonians for taking gold and bronze in the women’s fencing this morning — Mariel Zagunis and Rebecca Ward. They’re from Beaverton and they train there at the Oregon Fencing Alliance. Go Oregon! (In case you’re wondering, another American took silver, so they swept the medals.)

I keep getting these calls from these Asian folks calling from an “online pharmacy” asking me if I need pills for a — ahem, medical condition in my lower region. I received two of them today, and here is how they went:

Telemarketer: “This is Peter Parker from Online Pharmacy and I was wondering if you want some pills for your (ahem).”
Me: “I don’t have a medical condition down there, I don’t think. I’m completely operational, and all of my circuits are functioning perfectly, thanks.”
T: “You are a liar. Liar, liar, liar.” (click)

–end conversation #1, begin conversation #2–

T: “This is Peter Parker calling from–”
M: “Peter Parker? The one that turns into Superman?”
T: “Yes, why?”
M: “You guys keep calling my number so if you’re so concerned, could you please call the Springfield, Missouri Police Department. I just hit a kid while driving to work and I’m at a shoot right now, can you call them for me?”
T: “Uh…police…no.” (click)

So much for the Do Not Call registry. May these people burn.

I’ve shot some random photos of Springfield, and I rather enjoy most of them — I hope you do as well, since I’m using this post as a rather informal invitation to check out the album containing them all.

The images span a three-day period from Sunday night to yesterday. I love the sunsets around here especially.

Enjoy!

Well folks, I did exercise my right to vote yesterday and it turned out to be an interesting day for more than a few candidates. The fiercest battles were on the Republican side of the ring so let’s take a look at a few of those races.

Kenny Hulshof vs. Sarah Steelman - GOP gubernatorial primary
To me, this race speaks volumes about how divided the Republican party is…Hulshof eked out a win in this one, and my colleague Chad Livengood hit it right on the head when he told me after the KY3 debate that Steelman had a very good chance to possibly pull this one out. It looks like Steelman held firm ground in the rural counties, due to farmers standing against the ethanol mandate…but Hulshof mopped the floor with her in St. Louis and SE Missouri. 49 to 45 percent, and this race was too close for comfort for even the staunchest of Republicans. If you are GOP you have to wonder how many Dems crossed party lines to vote for Steelman because they want Nixon to win this November.

Any way you cut it, this promised to be a cutthroat race all along and Hulshof narrowly pulled it out.

Jim Arnott, Mark Webb and Gene Thomlinson - Greene Co. Sheriff GOP Primary
Arnott absolutely obliterated Webb and Thomlinson, as was widely expected. Arnott gathered 55% of the popular vote, which would have been enough to easily defeat one candidate — the fact he was running against two others made it look like child’s play. Judging from one of the sheriff debates I attended, Arnott was very articulate and had a clear agenda, whereas Webb and Thomlinson seemed to just be feeling it out. Arnott also had some good campaign support, including that of current Sheriff Jack Merritt — so the result is no surprise. I’m just surprised it wasn’t an even bigger victory.

Steve Helms, Brooke Hobbs and Peggy Kubicek - Greene Co. Circuit Clerk
This race was interesting to me simply because I wondered how Helms would fare after the fiasco involving a 9-11/religious tribute poster, but apparently it looks to me like that may have caused some evangelicals to rally around Helms…it’s going to be interesting now to see what happens in November.

There were a couple places that had good coverage of all the primaries yesterday, and I’ll link you below:

- Jason Wert had some particularly good coverage from the Republican Watch Party last night. Although I can’t imagine holding a party for this kind of stuff, apparently some folks did and it allowed Jason to help out KWTO radio with some reporting.

- My colleague Chad Livengood also did a great job reporting from Columbia and the Hulshof campaign’s watch party. Keep watching the N-L politics blog over the coming days as Hulshof is expected to begin campaigning immediately.

- Also, David Catanese at the KY3 Political Notebook covered the event very well. No shortage of useful info here, and as I mentioned before, I like the Drudge Report feel.

It is primary day and I will have absolutely no coverage on my blog. That’s right, friends, The World According to Chris Brewer is the place to get away from all that political stuff!!!

While many of my friends go crazy and get really involved in the political process, I will be at work, then rehearsing at JRA tomorrow night for choir. When I come home, I plan to read a book, drink some tea and head to bed.

Wake me up when November ends.